US President Donald Trump has said he will not proceed with the US-Saudi civilian nuclear cooperation agreement unless Riyadh first joins the Abraham Accords, the US-brokered framework under which several Arab nations have established formal diplomatic ties with Israel. The condition was added days after Washington signed the landmark nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly backed it, and Saudi Arabia has not yet responded.
Speaking to Fox News, Netanyahu said neither Israel nor the United States wants a military nuclear programme in Saudi Arabia, and that a civilian version tied to normalisation was possible. He described a future Saudi-Israel agreement as a potentially historic breakthrough and framed the push as an extension of the Abraham Accords, adding that further weakening of Iran would help such an outcome. Trump, addressing reporters on Friday, insisted the condition had always been part of the understanding, even though the nuclear deal had been announced before the condition was disclosed.
The proposed agreement would allow American companies to help Saudi Arabia build its first commercial nuclear power programme, with US technology, expertise, and oversight. Trump has said there will be no enrichment of material. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said American oversight would ensure the programme remains civilian.
The structural difficulty sits with the condition itself. Saudi Arabia has maintained for years that it will not establish formal diplomatic relations with Israel until there is a clear and irreversible path towards Palestinian statehood. The current Israeli government’s position is at odds with that demand. The nuclear cooperation agreement is now, in effect, conditional on a political settlement that both parties have publicly ruled out on their existing terms.
That places the deal in an unusual position. On paper, it is a bilateral energy and technology partnership between Washington and Riyadh. In practice, its precondition is a Palestinian statehood question that Israel and Saudi Arabia have not resolved for decades. What the announcement has not clarified is how the nuclear agreement moves forward when its unlock key sits with a third party’s unresolved political demand.
Source: Reuters, India Today
